Normal winter driving tips usually
talk about putting winter tyres on as soon as the temperature drops below seven
degrees centigrade and leaving plenty of time for your journeys.
That’s all good advice, but what if
you just fancy buying a new car and the only way to justify it to the rest
of your family is to tell them it’ll make for safer travel over the winter
months? Don’t worry, we’re on your side. There’s always room for a new car on
the drive…
Here are carwow’s top winter cars –
and there’s something for every budget and mentality, from the sensible to the
rather silly. Let’s get stuck in.
Best for people in
a hurry: Ford Fiesta
The Ford Fiesta is
perhaps not the first car you’d think of if you’re in a rush (unless it’s maybe
the brilliant ST version).
But bear with us – if you can spare a second. One of the frustrating aspects of
winter driving is having to scrape away the thick frost that builds up on
the windows overnight. It takes ages to remove, and you’ll probably ruin
another loyalty card – or worse still, your own knuckles – in the process.
Thanks to Ford’s ‘Quickclear’
windscreen, much of the time-consuming hassle can be removed. Identical in
principle to heated rear windows, you just flick a switch, and in a matter of
seconds, hey presto! The frost has gone, and you can be on your merry way far
sooner than you would otherwise.
The heating elements running through
the windscreen are tiny, so they don’t obstruct your forward vision. This handy
feature is available on almost any Ford, save for the Ka and the most basic
Fiesta and Focus models.
Best
for winter driving on a budget: Dacia Duster
There’s a whole range of bargain off
roaders on the market these days. Cars like the Skoda Yeti and Fiat Panda 4×4
are very capable thanks to their four-wheel drive systems, but our pick of the
bunch is the Dacia Duster.
It’s so hard to overlook the value
though. Prices start at just £9,495, which makes the Duster the cheapest
off-roader on sale in the UK. Sure, compared to some rivals it makes one or two
sacrifices, including a cabin that lacks the slightest hint of style.
But it looks nice and rugged on the outside, it’s decent – if not class-leading
– to drive, and the 1.5-litre diesel engine is more than adequate.
You won’t win any points with the
family, but it’s so cheap you could probably afford to just keep it in the
garage for those slippery days…
Best for remaining
un-stuck: Skoda Citigo
Contrary to what many believe, one of
the best ways to make it through the snow is in a car with a low kerb weight,
skinny tyres, and a modest amount of power driving the front wheels. If you’ve
ever seen a Citroen 2CV happily toddle about through a snow drift
while everyone else struggles for traction, you’ll have an idea of what
we’re talking about.
We appreciate that many of you will
find the little old French ‘tin snail’ somewhat slow and unrefined by modern
standards, but the excellent Skoda Citigo shares
many similar principles. Weighing in at a featherweight 929kg, the narrow tyres
help it to cut through the soft snow onto the grippier tarmac below.
Meanwhile, when pleasant weather
breaks out during the other weeks of the year, you’ll have an extremely
well-rounded city car; one that is is economical, well-built and fun to drive.
If the Skoda badge isn’t your thing, the Seat Mii and Volkswagen Up! are
pretty much identical machines.
Best for keeping
your neck warm: Mercedes Benz E-Class Cabriolet
A cabriolet car for the winter? No,
we haven’t lost leave of our senses. We Brits love our cabriolets – we buy more
than the French, Italian and the Spanish, despite our generally miserable
weather.
The second the sun pops out, the
roofs are down, even if it is minus five outside. That’s where Mercedes E-Class
Cabriolet, equipped with the’ brilliant ‘Airscarf’ system sweeps in
to rescue our cold ears. An air vent neatly tucked into the seat back blows a
warm draft around your shoulders and neck, keeping you nice and toasty even in
the most baltic of British winters.
If you’d rather something a little
more sporty looking, the same system is available on the Mercedes SLK,
too. Also, recent research has shown that winter is the cheapest time of year
to buy a convertible (surprise!), so you could be quids in if you turn up
at a carwow dealer on Christmas Eve…
Best for those who
like to see where they’re going: Audi R8 LMX
With the cold winter months come
longer nights, making a good set of lights vitally important. Help is on the
way in the sleek shape of the Audi R8 LMX. It is
the first car on sale in the UK to feature laser headlights as standard.
They offer a truly fantastic depth of
field, illuminating the road up to twice as far as LED headlights are able to,
and six times farther than your bog-standard halogen bulb. The
LMX also features software which, via a front mounted camera, recognises
oncoming traffic and adjusts the beam accordingly to reduce dazzle.
If the fact that you can tell your
mates that your car has frickin’ lasers still isn’t enough, then perhaps the
5.2-litre V10 may be enough to sway you? The monster 562hp it produces is
transferred to the road via all four wheels, too, so the R8 LMX really is the
ultimate winter supercar.
If the R8 isn’t your thing, then
laser lights are also available as an option on the stunning BMW i8, which isn’t quite
as quick, but offers spectacular fuel economy figures thanks to its hybrid
powertrain.
Best for affordable
winter performance: Audi TT
Is the R8 just a little too
pricey? Then perhaps its baby brother might be for you. The TT still features
Audi’s renowned quattro four-wheel-drive system on some models, and although
the LED headlights aren’t quite up to the level of the LMX’s lasers, they still
do a brilliant job of lighting the road ahead, allowing you to distinguish
between snowman and snow-covered man with ease.
You have a choice of strong diesel or
petrol engines – topping out at the seriously rapid 306hp TTS – and you’ll get
what is undoubtedly one of the finest automotive interiors money can buy. Just
remember that four-wheel-drive systems don’t help you slow down any faster in
the snow.
Best for warming
bums and hands: Kia Cee’d
Getting up for work on a freezing
cold morning is only slightly preferable to having cattle released into your
living room.
Forcing yourself to trudge outside
when you’d rather just hibernate in a nice warm bed takes considerable
willpower, so anything else that can offer that feeling of warmth during your
commute will always be welcome.
The Kia Cee’d, in the top-spec
‘4’ and ‘4 Tech’ models, comes equipped not only with heated seats, but a
heated steering wheel too. It isn’t quite a substitute for a thick duvet, but
at least you wont have to wrap up like Sir Ranulph Fiennes just to hop in your
car.
Best for those with
clumsy neighbours: Citroen C4 Cactus
It may be considered slightly odd
that one of our top ten winter choices is a car named after a plant evolved to
survive in hot, dry weather, but the Citroen C4
Cactus does have its wintry blessings.
Those quirky ‘Airbump’ panels on the
side of the Cactus not only look cool, but can withstand small bumps and
dings without damaging any of the precious paintwork. So, if someone is clumsy
with a car door when they’re in a hurry to escape the cold, they slip and crash
their shopping trolley into your car, or even drift on some black ice and bump
their car into you at a gentle speed, the Cactus is more than likely going to
escape largely unscathed.
The Citroen is both practical and
great value for a car of its size, too, so there is much else to recommend
besides its squidgy exterior.
Best for doing all
of the sensible stuff: Nissan Qashqai
Sometimes it’s just nice to
appreciate the basics that will take the stress out of winter driving, and that
is where the Nissan Qashqai comes
in. With optional four-wheel drive, an elevated driving position, excellent
reliability and top safety marks, Nissan’s popular crossover would be a perfect
companion for the long, dark winter nights.
Given the fact that the rest of the
year round you’ll be left with a practical family hatchback that is cheap to
run and pleasant enough to drive, it is easy to see why the Qashqai is
consistently one of the strongest selling cars in the UK.
Best for everything
else: Range Rover
Put simply, the latest Range Rover is
the perfect machine for winter driving. Not only is it staggeringly capable
whether being driven on road, off road, in poor weather or while wading through
up to 90cm of water, but it comes equipped as standard with a heap of
winter-repelling goodies.
A heated leather steering wheel,
heated windscreen, heated door mirrors, heated windscreen wipers (which
‘park’ away from screen when not in use to prevent freezing to the glass), and
heated seats all round are available on the Rangie. Thanks to the beautiful,
comfortable cabin, and a fantastic Meridian hi-fi system, you’ll even be
able to keep yourself relaxed and entertained if you’re stuck in a two-hour
traffic jam induced by a mild covering of sleet.
Save money this
winter
If you need to change your car this
winter but don’t want the hassle that’s usually involved, then use the carwow configurator to get dealers to
send you their best offers on new cars – and you can do it from in front of the
fire. You might save a pretty penny too, so there’s no excuse for
giving the kids a lump of coal for Christmas…
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